Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you got a letter in
the mail when you were seventeen, signed by someone who had a
direct pipeline to Ultimate Meaning, telling you exactly who you
are and what your true destiny is? Then you could carry this
letter around in your pocket, and when you got confused or
distracted and suddenly melted down, you’d reach for your wallet
and grab the letter and read it again and go, “Oh,
right.”

Imagine! You’re not a dumb, lost, inexperienced
seventeen-year-old! We actually have a spot picked out for you!
And not just any spot!

WANTED: Great Spiritual Leader. No experience
necessary.

Nevertheless, the letter was a bit of a shock. They wanted him to
attend the Drepung monastery in northern India. All (he) could
think about was, “Am I going to have to cut my hair?” “Am I going
to have to become a monk? Give up sex?” You think it would be
easy if your destiny were offered on a silver platter. But (he)
went around for a few days openly expressing his angst and
annoying his friends by debating whether this was the right thing
to do. The social pressure was so great that eventually he shut
up, gave in, and went off to the monastery, keeping his doubts to
himself. It took four years for the doubts to evaporate. But it’s
never been easy.

Whether you believe in Buddhism or reincarnation aside, if you’re
struggling with what you feel you were meant to do, getting so
direct an answer sounds like a huge relief.

But this isn’t going to happen to you. Or me.

And the irony is, if it did, you’d probably feel so trapped by
such a written-in-stone destiny that you’d sing that song of
longing that’s in the beginning of every Disney animated film and
wish for freedom.

So, for better or for worse, if no letter with the big answer is
coming, how do you resolve the question “What should you do
with your life?”

1) Realize you weren’t “born” to do anything

Reincarnated spiritual whatevers aside, most people aren’t born
to do anything.

After the fact, that’s very powerful — but beforehand it’s a huge
obstruction to actually finding what you’re going to do because
it now has this epic, earthshaking seriousness to it with
expectations that look like the trailer to a summer movie
blockbuster. It’s paralyzing.

Thinking about what you were “born to do” gets in the way
of actually learning and developing skills because life seems
more about thinking and less about doing.

You shouldn’t worry about natural talent. Yeah, if you’re 5’4″
you won’t be in the NBA anytime soon but that’s an edge case. You
can’t do anything about it.

How often does natural talent control really what you can achieve
in everyday life?

“After forty years of intensive research on school
learning in the United States as well as abroad, my major
conclusion is: What any person in the world can learn, almost all
persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and
current conditions of learning.” He’s not
counting the 2 to 3 percent of children who have severe
impairments, and he’s not counting the top 1 to 2 percent of
children at the other extreme… He is counting everybody
else.

2) Happiness and meaningful are not always the same thing

Some people want a job that makes them happy. Others want
something easy. Some want as much money as possible.

All of these are often very shallow perspectives. Yes, even happy
can be shallow. Why?

Whereas happiness was focused on feeling good in the
present, meaningfulness integrated past, present, and future, and
it sometimes meant feeling bad. Past misfortunes reduce present
happiness, but they are linked to higher meaningfulness — perhaps
because people cope with them by finding meaning.

Think about the things people value most when looking back on
life: children, achievements, marriage, education…

They’re not breezy afternoons on yachts with servants. These
all have a high pain-in-the-ass component.

Anything meaningful is a challenge. Looking back we love
challenges and looking forward we usually say we want the easiest
route possible. That doesn’t make much sense.

4) Do what you’re good at

Americans also gain a boost in positive emotions the more
they use their strengths. The more hours per day adults believe
they use their strengths, the more likely they are to report
having ample energy, feeling well-rested, being happy, smiling or
laughing a lot, learning something interesting, and being treated
with respect.

Using your strengths daily can make you significantly happier
for months.

When 577 volunteers were encouraged to pick one of their
signature strengths and use it in a new way each day for a week,
they became significantly happier and less depressed than control
groups. And these benefits lasted: Even after the experiment was
over, their levels of happiness remained heightened a full month
later. Studies have shown that the more you use your signature
strengths in daily life, the happier you become.

The more signature strengths were applied at the
workplace, the higher the positive experiences at
work. This study showed that character strengths
matter in vocational environments irrespective of their
content. Strengths-congruent activities at the
workplace are important for positive experiences at work like job
satisfaction and experiencing pleasure, engagement, and meaning
fostered by one’s job.

I can already hear the whines: “But I’m not good at
anything.”

This is a major problem in an era where both work and play
consists primarily of staring passively at screens.

But don’t let this take you back to the attitude of “born to do”
— anyone who is good at anything, got good at it.

My advice is to abandon the passion mindset which asks
“What does this job offer me? Am I happy with this job? Is it
giving me everything I want?” Shift from that mindset
to…“What am I offering the world? How valuable am
I? Am I really not that valuable?
If I’m not that valuable, then I shouldn’t expect things in my
working life. How can I get better?”

So what’s next?

This is an ongoing experiment for me. I’m looking for answers, a
method, a path.